Homeless Hackers Head to Noisebridge for Shelter

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Noisebridge regular Kris Zapata is concerned his days there might be numbered. Photo courtesy of KALW.

By Holly McDede, KALW

Every day, more than two dozen people pass through a hackerspace in San Francisco’s Mission district called Noisebridge. At its broadest, “hackerspace” means a place where people can create and make things better. In practice, that often means computer programming.

Because of this, Noisebridge occupies a unique place in the city’s landscape. The tech boom has pushed rents 53 percent higher than than they were a decade ago. And that’s pricing out some of the people most likely to participate in that new economy.

“One of the most shocking things about San Francisco and Silicon Valley for someone coming here from somewhere else,” says Danny O’Brien, a member of Noisebridge. “is discovering that a huge chunk of the technologists that you imagine caused this problem — a lot of them don’t have homes.”

But Noisebridge isn’t a homeless shelter. Living there is actually forbidden by the lease. Still, every night, at least a few people crash at Noisebridge. Some have managed to live there for weeks. The space is run by an anarchist-leaning group of core members, who see hacking as a path toward social justice. And now they’re asking themselves a hard question: how do you hack San Francisco’s homelessness problem? 

Read or listen to the complete story at KALW.

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